Month: September 2013

A lot has been said about youth in Africa and there are still ongoing debates stressing the importance of involving young people in major development efforts, including agriculture. Last week, picking up on a Twitter conversation from one of the youth activists online, I concluded that, indeed, many development organizations use the term “youth” as an attempt to portray themselves as ‘working for young people.’

The term “youth” has become little more than a buzz word. At the moment, there is a need for all organizations not to just talk the talk but walk the walk.

“Almost 1.2 billion people are going hungry in the world; a third of those are in Africa and sadly a lot of those are actually farmers themselves.” Those were the portentous words of Sean de Cleene, a senior vice president of Yara International (a leading fertilizer company based in Norway with businesses in Africa) and member of the World Economic Forum’s ‘New Vision for Agriculture’ – in an interview granted to Spore (an agricultural magazine for ACP countries).

Though other estimates differ, some putting the number at a more conservative range of 870 – 900 million people, still the general consensus is that a substantial part of the global population is suffering from hunger and a disproportionate part of this is in the developing world – to which Africa belongs. Ironically, an estimated 1.5 billion people are either overweight, obese or suffer from over-nutrition globally.

Visit Ghana and ask for the phone number of any ordinary person on the street, and most likely you’ll be given the option of two or three different mobile network operators (MNOs) to choose from. Ghana has 19 million cell phone subscribers for its over 24 million inhabitants — an impressive proportion — most of whom subscribe to more than one operator.

Ghana is one of Africa’s most vibrant and innovative communications markets. It launched the first cellular mobile network in sub-Saharan Africa in 1992, and was one of the first countries on the continent to be connected to the Internet and introduce ADSL services. A market leader in terms of liberalization and deregulation, Ghana Telecom in 1996.

The programme which will focus on business skills trainings and support for diversification of rural economies in order to increase cocoa farm household incomes will at least be beneficial to 10 Nigerian states by 2015.

Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, who made the announcement at WCF’s 23rd Annual Partnership Meeting in Washington, D.C., said the program is expected to generate benefits for more than 480,000 Nigerians and help double household incomes within the next five to six years. Nigeria’s

Commenting on the partnership, WCF President Bill Guyton said, “The World Cocoa Foundation and our company members are grateful for the confidence placed in the country by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, state governments and…

Evidence from several African countries suggests that female farmers are as efficient as male farmers, but are less productive because they are denied equal access to productive inputs and human capital. If their access to these inputs were at par with men’s access, total agricultural output in these countries could increase by up to 30% and increase agricultural output by up to 4%.

Integrating gender in programs, policies and projects thus aims to reduce gender disparities and enhance women’s participation in the economic development and their empowerment.

In 2012, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) adopted a gender strategy to guide the integration of gender in its work. The purpose of this manual is to provide operational guidance to ILRI staff and partners on how to integrate gender into the project cycle in accordance with the gender strategy.

Staff of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) visited a field site of the Dairy Genetics East Africa (DGEA) project in June 2011 (photo credit: BMGF/Lee Klejtnot).

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a USD1.3-million grant to researchers at the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England (UNE), in Australia, headed by John Gibson, who co-ordinates the International Development Activities at the University’s School of Environmental and Rural Sciences. Gibson, who formerly led genetics work at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, and his colleagues will work in close collaboration with teams led by ILRI livestock geneticist Okeyo Mwai, and Ed Rege, another former livestock geneticist from ILRI who is now at PICO-Eastern Africa, a non-profit consultancy organization in Nairobi.

This project could have profound impacts on small-hold farming in East Africa and change the livelihoods of literally millions of family farms.’—John Gibson…

Initially the intention was to request facilitators trained by the SPVCD project to apply the tools in Gulu, however none of them is proficient in the local language (Luo). Instead, value chain facilitators of the SPVCD project (Peter Lule Mulindwa and Peter Ssentumbwe) trained new facilitators in Gulu.

The training was held in early September and was attended by eight people – including Tony Aliro (District Veterinary Officer) and…